[axelj]

Hi,

I had issues with my first N97 with the GPS taking FOREVER for the first GPS-fix via satellite.

Software V 10, ONLY internal GPS, switched off A-GPS and all the others, since i dont want to

pay an extra fee because my cellphone is logged in via the provider (sorry vodafone!).

Being a experienced N95/GPS-User i know that for the first satellite gps-fix it needs quite some time.

This is due to the satellite "almanach" and the "ephimerides". for a good gps-device the first fix takes

at least 12,5 minutes. why, read here: http://www.kowoma.de/gps/Signalaufbau.htm

(sorry, its german, but let it translate via babelfish or any translation engine!)

tip 1:

if you have a wlan nearby, then use (turn on!) a-gps and netbased gps for the first gps-fix, because your cellphone will start to download the "almanach" (thats a list, where all the satellites should be at your local cellphone time

and it also contains the function/status of all the satellites)

tip 2: (for the above): check whether your cellphone date and time are really correct and maybe re-adjust!!! that helps a lot!

tip 3: this almanach (with the ephimerides!) is only valid within the next 6 hours or withing the range of 300 km

(which translates to 186,5 miles!) which means, that if you turn back on your gps 6 hours or later from the last

time/date it will have to re-download the almanach. again: check if you have a wlan nearby, its faster!

tip 4:  if your cellphone cant get a gps-fix with the Maps application, simply use the application called GPS-Data that is also installed on your mobile! This one sometimes can "repair" the almanch on the phone! As soon as your GPS-Data application has a gps-fix you can shut it down and start up your Maps application.

 My phone was able to have a satellite fix within a few seconds (sometimes up to 30 secs!). I can live with this timespan.

I dopped my N95 in favor of an E71. For now my favorite phone, since its fast and stable. No bugs like i have with my N97! The E71 did a really good job with the GPS and Maps 2.0. I use it for navigation in my car, walking, sports and last but not least for gliding with a sailplane. Never had ANY problems, real quick gps-fix and almost no hiccups (gps-signal loss) except for bad weather!

Software bug in Maps 3.0?

I believe so. Long story cut short:

My N97 (the second one) worked great with maps 2.0! My E71 worked great with Maps 2.0.

I installed Maps 3.0 (over the Maps updater via PC) on the N97.

The result was, that it took forever for a satellite fix and it now cannot keep the signal. The signal is lost every now and then which leads to a new calculation of my route. Then i updated my E71 (stupidity and curiosity can be a dangerous mix!) to Maps 3.0 with the result that it now takes FOREVER for a sat-fix and loses its signal now and then

But then again this can be also good news for all the N97-owners out there, because i see that the E71 and the N97 have the same good signal quality when i check in my GPS-data programm (not Maps!). They both show the same "bug" now, which sure leads to the conclusion that this MUST be a software related problem. And knowing this, I have the hope that NOKIA fixes this bug as soon as possible. On both of my phones please

Hope this helped a bit in getting a gps-fix or it helped calming down your nerves and wait for the next software-release of Maps.

cheers, axel

ps: im getting a new N97 on Monday. I wont install Maps 3.0 on this one then, because of 2 reasons:

1. the Maps 3.0 (3.01 or 3.1) software is buggy and i cant use my navigation then!

2. the Maps 3.0 installs still on my C: drive (which i dont like since the RAM on this device is limited (lets say CRIPPLED!) and nokia/symbian still dont have an operating system which is abled to handle applications installed on my mass storage! (32 GB -> FOR WHAT?) i could have lived with 4 or 8 GB, not with 80 MB RAM!

3. waiting for a firmware update or a Maps update that uses my mass storage finally!

Message Edited by axelj on 17-Jul-2009 03:49 PM

Message Edited by axelj on 17-Jul-2009 03:59 PM

[axelj]

small addition:

the signal link above translated from german to english:

http://de.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fww...

hope this helps.

additional info:

good car/flight navigation systems have prediction algorithms for keeping the almanach updated

even if they have no satellite signal. some others do it by constantly keeping the gps signal

even if the device is turned off since this can be done with a minimal amount of power and voltage

via an internal battery. i doubt that nokia is doing this on such a small device where the battery is

needed for many other things, because it would dratically exhaust your battery lifetime.

[monkeypilot]

maps 3 is the problem

after i updated to 3 the gps went on the wonk

hard reset the phone back to 2 and it was fine again.

[axelj]

as far as i have seen the maps 3.0, maps 3.01 and maps 3.1 versions for the N97 are still the same,

showing 3.01 on the info screen.

but apperently there seems to be an update to a REAL V3.1 which has several bugfixes and also

"improved performance" which could be the bug in my N97 version, since i permanently lose the gps-fix while travelling and the phone needs forever to get a first fix without a-gps and such.

see:

http://noknok.tv/2009/07/17/nokia-n86-8mp-gets-software-update/

hope that this will come out for my N97 soon.

but then again it could be that they use the N86 owners as beta-testers before they release it for other phones.

 (pure assumtion of course!)

[neukenuk]

I have Ovi Maps on N97 and N96; On the N96 it performs exceptionally well if not near enough faultless. The N97 version does seem have issues and I think it resides with both the GPS unit and A-GPS programming.

When I turn off A-GPS and use the GPS unit only, it take over 5 minutes to get a fix and the position always seems to be 10-20 meters adift, but then there are reduced amounts of "GPS Signal have been lost" notifications and less appearing to be in a field when the road deviates or approaches a side road.

[neukenuk]

Hmmmm Omni vs N97 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOM7voWd5wc

[axelj]

hey neukenuk,

except for switching off the a-gps method, did you switch off all others except internal gps?

5 minutes is FAST! ;D mine needs at least 30 minutes up to an hour without using the gps-data app before.

the sportstracker app is not getting a gps-fix too... :/

as advertised the phone should work with only the internal gps method.

all others are seen as helper apps, but still can cost money.

cheers.

[neukenuk]

I only had Internals and Network GPS on. But I do have a problem with its location calculations, it seems to be 1 munite west out of sync constantly. When I drive down the motorway, if there is a road that passes beneath it, then i some how find myself on that road for about 5 seconds.

[mikequinn]

After reading and taking action based on a load of posts on this topic I still found myself seemingly several hundred yards (meters) away from my N97 even though it was in  my hands all the time!I thought the problem was that I chose to use Google maps rather than the Nokia maps. But no, even when using Nokia maps I was told by my N97 phone that it was down the pub at the bottom of the road rather than being on charge and sitting on the dashboard of my car ready to direct me to an appointment (not the pub)  Fed up that I was (a) going to work and not the pub (b)  that the N97 had another failing -my N95 had great navigational skills with pin point accuracy- and the N97 was always somewhere else. I tried something -thinking about the crazy way we all have to calibrate the compass on the N97, I thought I would rotate my N97 through each axis to see if that improved the accuracy and guess what- perfect repeatable accuracy!  Give it a try and see if also works for you too.

[axelj]

There surely is a f.ckup in getting the first position for the gps (without a-pgs that is!).

Still needs 45 or 100 km to get a lock without gps. still not what i expect it to do.

but at least i think i found a SOLUTION (?) for the constant lock-losses:

in the maps 3 settings you can find an entry "maps improvement" (its karten verbesserung in german, so maybe the english variant of that is translated different. you will find it under:

EXTRAS -> SETTINGS -> NAVIGATION -> "maps improvement" (the last setting down the list which you can adjust!)

if you turn that off the phone will keep the signal and stops recalcutlating your route!

i thought that this entry for somehow gui related like making the gui smoother or faster.

nope, i was wrong. reading the internal help system it was clear that this entry is chosen for

"collecting and sending gps data to nokia, to improve the software itself". WHAT?

ARE THEY NUTS?

Maps 3 feels like heavy duty engineer software on a wrist watch processor and they use calculation power

to "collect and send gps data"? I turned this one off and now it seems that only the software itself is

"collecting gps data" as it should have been in the first place! This will not cure your GPS fix problems

within the first hour after starting maps. Sometimes this is within a few seconds (surprisingly i had that

yesterday morning, in the afternoon it was back to an hour!) but usually it takes forever. But for the guys

here that use A-GPS this could be a fix to have at least fine navigation with no signal losses anymore.

Try it and tell me if this is a solution for you.

cheers

[sapporobaby]

Great post alexj. Thanks for the info.

[monkeypilot]

nice post Alex, but i'm on maps 2 until maps 3 is definitely sorted. There is no such setting in maps 2.

[axelj]

thank you.

i just found this helpful with maps 3.

be gald that you are on maps 2 still, maps 3 is laggy.

and i think this setting is responsible for this lag.

if any of you found out that it helps you could set this thread as a solution,

so others can find it better. but i'd do that only if it really helped.

[sapporobaby]

Here is a word of advice. If you are on Maps 2.x DO NOT UPGRADE to Ovi Maps as the license will then be pushed to Ovi Maps 3.x and there is no way to get it back. I did this and Nokia made no mention of it. I am in the process of fighting with them because they want me to stay on Maps 3.**bleep** but it is pants. I want to go back to 2.x with my 2 year turn by turn license.

[axelj]

true sapporobaby

and also dont upgrade your symbian on the phone to windows vista.

[monkeypilot]

sapporobaby

i hard reset my phone, got back to v2. It wouldn't accept a manual re-enter of the licence code, but i went to check licenses and it downloaded it again. I've still got a year or so left of my 3 year license on v2.

[kevinx1]

Another thread here /discussions/board/message?board.id=navigation&thread.id=11585&view=by_date_ascending&page=5 , which bears relevance.

Axel, I will wait the response of others, regarding your tip on the "Maps improvement", to see if that does the trick, but in the mean time I shall remain with v2 (after previous 2 x N97s' had problems with the nav.

Cheers

[axelj]

hey kevinx1,

totally understand that

i also tried the "dutch fix" which is by installing the firmware twice (the v11 one).

but that didnt help with my phone. i tried it twice.

as i said, mine is not a fix for the ppor gps fix for the initial fix.

but it made maps version 3 at least more stable without the "200 yards behind" lag or

the constant signal loss.

i still hope that somebody tries it and can tell if it works or not...

cheers, axel

[jarski]

---

axelj wrote:

but at least i think i found a SOLUTION (?) for the constant lock-losses:

in the maps 3 settings you can find an entry "maps improvement" (its karten verbesserung in german, so maybe the english variant of that is translated different. you will find it under:

EXTRAS -> SETTINGS -> NAVIGATION -> "maps improvement" (the last setting down the list which you can adjust!)

if you turn that off the phone will keep the signal and stops recalcutlating your route!

Not helped me. I have used for testing purpose N97 and Maps 3.0 (or 3.1) every day. And I have tried many different settings, updates and hard-reset. Today it's "maps improvement"-off day. Can't notice any difference to my earlier experience. I get fix usually very quickly. That is not problem. I have good reseption even in my livingroom and it show my place right. But after while it is in trouble. It takes about 20 minutes to me drive to work. Maps can show only few seconds my speed. Green indicator on right corner is still usually in green.

Message Edited by jarski on 28-Jul-2009 11:03 PM

Message Edited by jarski on 28-Jul-2009 11:03 PM

Message Edited by jarski on 28-Jul-2009 11:04 PM

[axelj]

sad...

it helped on my device, i had all the lags too.

did you also try to disable the auto-zoom feature?

also turned that off just to save some calculation power...

maybe its with both?

thanks for your feedback anyways!